The research group was dedicated to interdisciplinary research into water supply in the Mediterranean region and the Near East in diverse time periods ranging from the Bronze Age to the Middle Ages.

In addition to inventorying, classifying and mapping water management structure and technologies, the group also examined the legal basis for water management and distribution and investigates influences and reactions occurring in the course of environmental and social changes:

What impact have changing climate conditions had on the efficiency of water supply systems since the Bronze Age?

To what extent have water harvesting measures influenced the environment, thereby changing the natural vulnerability/landscape sensitivity and requiring new adaptation strategies?

What strategies were developed for disposing of and purifying wastewater?

What forms and regulatory models (e.g. in the Roman Empire) of water management are known to have been used in antiquity? Can the influence of climatic, political or regional factors on the application of the law be determined? What legal safeguards were introduced in order to guarantee water supply?

Are the traditional measures implemented in antiquity or the Middle Ages still used today? Are they used in their original form or have the technologies been further developed? To what extent have legal grounds and governance structures changed?

The research group based its work on fundamental research and groundwork performed during the first funding phase. In Topoi II, as a cross-sectional group Key Topic Watermanagement, it served as an interdisciplinary network for research subprojects in the research areas A-D.